1565 Cleveland Ave
New Orleans, LA 70112, USA

Lafcadio Hearn House - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance:

The house at 1565-67 Cleveland is of local significance in the area of literature because it was the home of Lafcadio Hearn, a prolific and important New Orleans local color writer. Hearn rented rooms in the house from late 1881 until 1887, when he moved briefly to New York, then to the French West Indies, and finally to Japan. Hearn lived in multiple residences during his 10-year tenure in New Orleans; the house at 1565-67 Cleveland is easily the house where he lived the longest. Additionally, it is where he lived during his most important and prolific phase. The author's works produced while living at the candidate gained substantially in importance as he transitioned from writing local color essays to full-length manuscripts describing New Orleans culture. Also, while living at the boardinghouse, he completed the work for which he is best known in this country, Chita: A Memory of Lost Island.

Lafcadio Hearn was born in 1850 on the Greek island of Leucadia, the son of a British military surgeon, Charles Hearn, and an island native, Rosa Cassimati Hearn. During his youth, Lafcadio and his mother traveled to Ireland to be looked after by his paternal grandmother while his father continued to serve in the British military. This was the beginning of Hearn's experience as a wanderer. He never again settled in one city, much less residence, for very long, until moving to New Orleans. In 1856, his parents’ marriage was annulled and Rosa traveled back to Greece, leaving Lafcadio in the care of his paternal relatives. He continued to be passed around among relatives and friends of the family, and attended St. Cuthbert's College in England, until 1867. There, he was blinded in one eye in a school yard accident. For the rest of his life, his damaged eye caused himself consciousness and embarrassment over his appearance. He moved into his great-aunt's house, and after his father died, he was sent to the home of his great-aunt's former maid in London. In 1869, he was sent to a distant relation's home in Cincinnati, Ohio with the understanding that he would receive assistance in getting settled. The relative, however, turned him out into the streets with only a pittance. Hearn struggled, virtually penniless, until he began writing professionally for The Cincinnati Enquirer. He went from the Enquirer to The Commercial, where he continued to write essays on a variety of subjects.

Lafcadio Hearn moved from Cincinnati to New Orleans in 1877. He left behind his African-American wife, Alethea Foley, to whom he was illegally married in 1874, when miscegenation was still outlawed. He began writing for The City Item, a New Orleans newspaper, in 1878. After saving most of his income from writing, he opened The Hard Times restaurant with a friend who became his business partner. Within one-month of the restaurant's opening, his partner absconded with the cook and all of the cash on hand. Lafcadio was left with only a failed business and a load of debt. He continued at The City Item until late 1881. For the next few years Hearn worked for the Times-Democrat. During his time in New Orleans, he submitted countless essays to national publications, including Harper’s Monthly, Harper’s Weekly, and Harper’s Bazaar.

Hearn moved to the island of Martinique, in the French West Indies, in 1887. He hoped that he would be able to publish the same sort of local color stories of Martinique that he had of New Orleans in national publications. The response was disappointing. Hearn once again was struck by wanderlust, and found himself traveling in 1890 to Japan for what he expected to be an assignment of a few months in length. He immersed himself in Japanese culture and married Setsu Koizumi, the daughter of a samurai. He gained Japanese citizenship in 1896, when Setsu's father adopted him. Hearn was 46 at the time. He continued writing and went on to work as a teacher in Japan, both at the lower and university levels. His local color descriptions of Japan became the basis of western opinions of the country, and even among the Japanese themselves as their country became more westernized. Hearn died of heart failure in Japan in 1904.

Lafcadio Hearn is best known for his local color writing, which depicted life in New Orleans (often the underclass) using exact details, local speech and customs, and a strong sense of place. It has been argued (Kenneth Starr, Inventing New Orleans) that Hearn’s description of New Orleans, produced for consumption on a national level, has partly shaped what New Orleans been today. By embracing Hearn’s somewhat sensationalistic descriptions of Creoles, voodoo, and street life, so goes the theory, the modem culture of the city reflects the author’s vision.

George Washington Cable, the best-known writer of New Orleans local color, befriended Hearn when he moved to New Orleans, and aided him in getting published in Century and Harper’s Weekly magazines. They eventually collaborated on recording African-Creole Street music, with Hearn writing the words and Cable writing the melodies. Their friendship was off-and-on due to professional jealousy and differences of opinion on religion.

From 1877 to 1881 Hearn boarded at several addresses in New Orleans. The boardinghouse at 1565-67 Cleveland Avenue was the author’s residence in the city from late 1881 to 1887 (per Hearn letters, eyewitness accounts and other primary sources). It was here that he entered his most prolific phase and matured as an artist. His job at the Times-Democrat paid more and required fewer hours of work, allowing him time to write longer magazine articles, which were a stepping stone to his ultimate achievement in this period: the novella Chita, A Memory of Lost Island. The novella was based on stories Hearn heard while in Louisiana of I’le Derniere, a barrier island washed away by the great hurricane of 1856. According to his correspondence, Hearn began to conceive the work as early as December 1882. It was first published in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in 1888 and released by Harper Brothers in book form the following year. As his letters indicate, he began writing Chita during sojourns to Grand Isle (on the Louisiana coast) and completed it while living at 1565-67 Cleveland. Hearn’s output while living at the candidate was indeed prodigious. In addition to Chita, he wrote countless pieces for national magazines and local newspapers; produced and had published a Creole cookbook. La Cuisine Creole, and Combo Zhebes, a dictionary of Creole proverbs; translated his first literary pieces; and co-edited Historical Sketch Book and Guide to New Orleans.